Saturday, April 14, 2012

Whenever i have this cool drink, my memories go back to my childhood. This particular drink has a special place in my childhood memories which i cherish the most. Nannari (it is called so at my native place) is also called Sugandha water (at my grandma's place). The first time i had this drink was long ago in the 1990's at my grand mother's place, Kavali.

We used to pack for the vacation in advance and start on the very first day of the holidays to this beautiful place called Musunur in Nellore dist. Kavali, AP. We would go to the Railway station and catch the Krishna Express in the early morning and reach Kavali by 9.30 AM. From Kavali town, we had to take a share auto or a special auto to reach home in our small village (Musunur) nearby. Before we get in to the Auto, my grand father would buy us this drink at a shop near Railway station.

He used to wait in the Railway station for us and we could see him standing on the platform from the window of our bogie and wave to him until the train stopped. We could also see his eyes pop wide open and his teeth less mouth get a small curve with a smile, immediately after seeing us. It felt like, as if he was waiting for us, standing there, from so many days. It is true indeed (except for the 'standing there' part). My grandma and grandpa used to wait for us through out the year and we were treated like kings & queens.

Even at my native place Tirupati, me and my sister used to go to a shop where it is always bustling with a long que of people for this drink. I still remember, even a few years before too, we went there and bought this same juice from the shop after a tiring shopping session. We just ran there and had this juice and it felt out of this world.

Hmmm...nostalgia. Okay, lets come to the present day and to this recipe. We get the concentrated solution of this nannari juice from shops. My father has brought this concentrated juice bottle for me as i like it very much. This has to be mixed with lemon juice and water / soda . But i found an alternative and here is the same. This is a pretty simple drink, so i didn't take the photographs. :-)

Ingredients

Nannari sharbat (concentrate liquid)

7up soda

Take a tall glass tumbler and pour 3 tbsps of Nannari Juice (concentrate) in to it.

Then fill the glass with chilled 7 up soda up to 3/4th of the glass.

Mix it well with a spoon.

Thats it. The great Nannari alias Sugandha water sharbat is ready. Generally this is mixed with half lemon juice and soda. But i'm too lazy to go buy a lemon and squeeze and mix it. I ran out of lemons at home. So, I found one 7up in the fridge and i made this easier.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Capsicum is one of my favorite veggies and i want to cook them often. I got fed up of having capsicum in onion and tomato gravy and want to try something new. Actually, this recipe happened accidentally and i was eagerly waiting to share it. Let me tell you how did it happen.

The other day, i was left with just a few capsicums and onions only. I was so confused and couldn't decide how to proceed further with these two things. i promptly turned to my SIL and asked for a quick recipe and got this.

Heat 3 tbsps of oil in a pan and add Cinnamon pieces, cloves, elachi and marathi moggu and fry them.
Add Onions and chillis and coriander leaves to this and saute them for while.

Keep a lid on the pan and let the onions and chillis cook on a low flame until the raw smell is gone.
In the mean time, boil a half cup of water and poppy seeds to it and let it sit for few minutes.

Switch off the stove and transfer the fried onions & chillies and poppy seeds in to the mixie jar
*(before doing this, i've removed all the masala items Cinnamon, elachi, cloves and marathi moggu as i don't want them to grind together with the onions).
Add half cup of coconut pieces to the mixie jar.
Grind the onions, poppy seeds and coconut together in a mixer to get a fine paste.

In a large frying pan, heat 4 tbsps of oil and add cumin seeds.

Once the cumin seeds starts crackling, add capsicum and saute them with a lid on the pan till they become soft.

Then add the onion and poppy seed paste to the capsicum and mix them well.

Add little water and cook it with the lid on.

Finally, add required amount of salt and a little sugar and tsp full of garam masala powder to the mixture and keep it on low flame for a minute or two.

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About Me

A typical tech savvy young mom (homemaker) who loves to cook and browse most of the little left over free time. Also enjoys listening any form of music, playing games online, singing songs, reading blogs (especially those related to food) etc.,